Case Study:
Bloomspace Architectural Design/Build Firm Website

Website concept to recruit businesses to apply to retrofit their unused commercial spaces with community gardens.

My role: Idea definition, stakeholder interviews, market research, I Like I wish What if ideation, user flows, user scenario, site map, lo-, mid-, and hi-fi Figma prototypes.

Tools: Figma, Google Suite, InVision, Zoom, GitHub, Gantt

Bloomspace, a green solutions design/build firm grew from the idea of retrofitting unused commercial spaces to be more environmentally friendly, needed a website that is engaging, informative, and easy to navigate.Their website needs to attract and educate users, and, ultimately, prompt them to fill out an application.

The Problem

Businesses have unused square footage.

We want to:

Benefit their local communities and natural environments

Lessen the ecological footprint of their property

Repurpose and improve their space

They want to:

Lower their monthly energy costs

Lessen the ecological footprint of their property

Improve the look and appeal of their space

Initial Solution

At first, Bloomspace could work with be schools, office buildings, rooftops, parking lots, industrial warehouses, and small businesses, offering both DIY project support and all-one-one design/build services.

This initial business model was expansive and unfocused:

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Persona Iterations

We created two initial proto personas: one small business owner and one property owner.
Throughout our research it became clear that the project scope was too big and our personas had totally different goals and needs.

The simpler and more effective solution would be to focus on Gordon, our developer persona, to hone in on corporate buildings.

Gordon Aster:
55 years-old
Develop
St. Paul, MN

Gordon has a building that is 20% vacant and has to find a way to increase its appeal.
Environmental buildings are an increasing trend that Gordon wants to get ahead of.
Gordon needs to lower his building costs while increasing the building income.

Stakeholder Interviews

We spoke with individuals in environmental architecture, real estate development, and landscaping.

Their professional backgrounds helped us to understand that we should be focusing on corporate spaces and that clients are more interested in the aesthetic and financial benefits than the environmental ones. This changed how we would present the information on our site, through emphasizing cost-savings and aesthetic opportunities, and by adding an Education section to help clients learn about the environmental benefits.

User Insights

A commercial property owner in an urban center with a cold climate struggles to pay monthly energy bills, worries about his business’s carbon footprint, and feels like his building needs more appeal and amenities

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Research and interviews revealed a historically high volume of empty office spaces. It also showed a considerable ROI on green infrastructure investments, improved public image, and improvements to mental health in offices incorporating plant-life.

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A service that assesses spaces to curate an eco-friendly architectural rehabilitation strategywould help save on monthly costs, lower carbon footprints, take advantage of tax incentives, shifting public option towards green architecture, support local ecosystems and biodiversity, supplement building amenities, and increase property value.

“There’s a historic amount of office vacancy, especially in cities.”

“Clients think they know what they want but the purpose of the designer is to design something livable, legal, and a good space.”

“Most people are looking to keep up with their neighbors and make it look cute.”

User Scenario

We envisioned Gordon going through the process of working with Bloomspace.

Breaking out the exact steps we would want a client to take when entering our website, Gordon helped us to figure out the most important aspects of the site, as well as what blockers we would already be facing.

Styles & Branding

Primary Colors

#228B22

#87CEEB

#8B4513

#6B8E23

#FFD700

#0077BE

#E6E6FA

#9696FF

Secondary Colors

#556B2F

#C9C9C9

#C4562C

#BDD5A8

#F0E68C

#ADD8E6

#FFE5B4

Buttons

Primary

Secondary

Alternative

Mobile Page Design

User Testing

Strategy

Since the site was shaping out to be information-based and not action or task-oriented, we opted to center user tests around locating and digesting information.

“Methodology could belong on any page.”“Are all of the application questions required?”“It should be more interactive?”

Results

We found mixed results from user testing. While most users succeeded, ample testing failures revealed the need for some udpates:

Task 1
On what page do you think you'd find information about bloomspace's methodology? - 63% success rate

Task 2
What's rainwater harvesting? - 75% success rate

Task 3
Apply to Bloomspace and land on the Personalized Proposal Page - 63% success rate

Based on user testing and feedback, prototype changes included:

Strategize section names and content
Add contextual information to content
Rearranged sections to reflect a realistic renovation process
Added a consultation option
Overhauled styling like button colors, page designs, heading font choices, and more.

Hi-fi Prototypes

Our final, clickable Figma prototype is a colorful site that not only serves as a service for businesses to potentially cut costs, but also educates potential customers on what they can do for their community.

Next Steps

Through interviews and users tests with professionals in architecture, real estate, landscaping, and marketing, it’s clear there is interest in and excitement about this idea. If we were to take further steps to move Bloomspace from concept to reality, we would:

Develop the product, prove need in the market, and gather the team
Identify and recruit initial client
Apply for seed funding and/or angel investing